The Virgin's War (Tudor Legacy #3)(49)
“I don’t know, Anabel. There are limits to my knowledge. I cannot see beyond—”
She broke off so suddenly it startled Anabel. “Beyond what?”
Pippa’s expression closed off, something rare in her friend. “I can tell you the same thing I told you several years ago—you will marry of your own choice. That is all I know.”
“?‘All’ you know?” Anabel didn’t believe that for a moment. But no one ever succeeded in forcing Pippa to share things she didn’t want to. So Anabel shrugged and said, “Back to the original issue. Will it be politically devastating to have Kit come south with us in November?”
“It may feed gossip, but so would leaving him behind. People will find the stories they wish to tell. It may not be wise, but it will not break any of your plans.”
The princess smiled. “Then I am willing to be unwise.”
The only saving grace of being back in Ireland was that Stephen was kept so busy he hardly had the time or energy to fret about it. Partly it was his own doing—he drove his men harder than ever, throwing the company into sorties designed to push back the ever-encroaching rebels. There were Spanish soldiers aplenty around Dublin, in numbers that argued they might be thin on the ground elsewhere in Ireland.
It was a fact confirmed by Thomas Butler when the Earl of Ormond took to the sea to slip into Dublin by water. The earl stayed at Dublin Castle, where Stephen was also officially quartered with the Lord Deputy. Unofficially, he spent most of his time with his officers and men quartered outside the city, as he disliked the official attention being paid him merely because of his family name.
But Ormond was worth coming to the castle for. If for no other reason than that Stephen owed the man both thanks and apology for the last time they had seen one another. When Stephen had used the earl’s dagger to kill a man in Queen Elizabeth’s own palace.
Ormond waved the apology away. “You were young and passionate. Those are things we well understand in Ireland. I must say, though, I did not expect to ever see you here again.”
“You and me both.”
“You’ve come with good men, at least. The Lord Deputy is grateful.”
Stephen merely grunted. Sir John Perrot was an entertaining man, but what little time Stephen had that was not spent in the field or training, he preferred to spend with Maisie. Perrot was not his first choice for company.
Ormond laughed and said, “If Dublin is not to your liking, how about returning to Leinster with me? It’s where the rest of the Spanish are concentrated—trying to push me into the sea.”
“My orders are Dublin and the Pale,” Stephen said woodenly.
“And you have always shown yourself so quick to follow orders.” It was said without malice. “Well, I can’t say I’m surprised. And as long as you’re pushing back the Pale up here, you’re keeping troops from being used against me. If we hold them this winter, I doubt they’ll have the stomach for another push. Especially not with my dear cousin, the queen, practically daring King Philip to come against England itself.”
Maisie invited the earl to dinner before he left Dublin, and Stephen was relieved to have Tom Butler’s attention turned on someone other than himself. She had taken a house and kept up a constant flow of business matters with the aid of her Flemish secretary, Pieter Andries. Though Stephen had been initially surprised at her insistence on coming to Ireland with him, he was grateful. It helped to have a touchstone whenever a scent or a storm or an accent pulled at his memories.
At dinner, Maisie controlled the conversation effortlessly, telling stories of her travels and making Ormond laugh. Then he managed to edge in a reminiscence of his own.
“Such a slip of girl you were, the first time I saw you. I thought a mistake had been made, and a child had been sent to wed old Finian Kavanaugh.”
The name made Stephen flinch, and even Maisie seemed momentarily shocked. She managed to redirect the earl—who appeared to know exactly what she was doing but humoured her—and the rest of the evening passed without further awkwardness.
Stephen was just letting out a sigh of relief after Ormond’s departure when Maisie said abruptly to him, “We should talk about it.”
“About what?” Though he knew perfectly well. He had learned to understand the way her mind worked, to a degree. And he had been expecting this ever since Queen Elizabeth had made her uncomfortable demand.
Maisie seated herself with the kind of elegant flourish familiar to Stephen from a lifetime of highborn women. But her face was fierce and focused. “Have you made inquiries about Ailis since we arrived?”
It was the first time her name had been spoken between them in three years. The air shivered, and when Stephen blinked, he had the sudden sense of seeing everything more clearly.
“No. Have you?”
“Yes.”
The breath caught in his throat. “And I suppose you want to tell me?”
She merely regarded him, the candlelight sliding across the angles of her face, her grey eyes alternately bright and shadowed.
Stephen sat down abruptly and dropped his head into his hands. “Tell me.”
“Diarmid mac Briain changed his name to Kavanaugh when he married Ailis three years ago. For the sake of the clan.” That, of course, Stephen had already known. Maisie herself had delivered the news when visiting him in the Tower of London after his arrest. Even then it had been no surprise. From the first week in Ailis’s household, Stephen had known that the captain of the guard was in love with her. No, Diarmid would have had no qualms in changing his name if it brought him Ailis.